The fact that Sanader intervened in the bank at least 13 times was uncovered by the heads of the Hypo Alpe Adria bank in a report on the banks status they were obliged to send to the Austrian national bank. Events surrounding the bank, following many years of agony that were marred by various scandals, ignited an unbelievable drama in Austria only a few days ago. At the end of the dramatic sequence of events it was decided that the bank would returned to state ownership, and that prior to this all of its co-owners would have to deposit onto the banks account hundreds of millions of euro, but also that some of the losses would be recuperated from the Austrian taxpayer through the state budget.

That was the primary reason for establishing the Soko Hypo special investigation unit, which will be comprised of ten financial and business experts. The unit could finally shed some light on the numerous suspicious business transactions of the Hypo Alpe Adria bank, in which, at various levels, a number of influential Croatians, led by former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, Ivic Pasalic and Vladimir Zagorec, were involved. When reporting on the issue, the Austrian media have begun using the opportune acronym K.u.K. - Kroatien und Korruption (Croatia and corruption). In Austria the dramatic outcome of the Hypo Alpe Adria bank crisis, created an altogether new situation, which could assist Croatian authorities in the search for money stolen from funds intended for Croatia's defence. Because of the bank's large losses in Austria, previous investigations had already been initiated, but the circumstances were somewhat different. Informed financial circles in Austria confirmed for Nacional that during those investigations there may have been some calculating, so as to not directly harm Austrian interests, and the Hypo Alpe Adria bank's business in Austria, as well as in Croatia. An Austrian political source confirmed for Nacional that these circumstances are different this time around. It is predicted that the special investigation unit will, this time around, not calculate at all in its investigation of illegalities, specifically with regards to those connected to the bank's business dealings in Croatia.

Nacional learned from informed legal sources that last week the competent Austrian institutions once again contacted the Croatia State Attorney's Office, in an effort to intensify cooperation that is ongoing since the extradition of Vladimir Zagorec as a result of the gem scandal. A date has not yet been set as to when Soko Hypo representatives will meet with representatives from the Croatian State Attorney's Office, but it will happen very quickly. "We agreed to intensify our already good cooperation and concluded that the issue in question is very serious, in which we must reciprocally assist one another, because that is the only way to bring things to a conclusion. Our Austrian colleagues told us that they too could not complete their investigations without Croatian assistance, and we informed them that we could not resolve some of our open issues without Austrian help. We cannot do this individually, both sides are aware of this, and now we can begin to talk of the launch of a new phase of cooperation, which will certainly lead to good results," an informed legal source in Croatia told Nacional.

That was in December. Sanader appeared before a parliamentary committe of inquiry of some sort in Zagreb this past week, but apparently he had refused an earlier invitation to clarify these things before the parliament.

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